All The World Is Renewed By Fire

It looks like Aaron Williams focuses on material but he doesn’t. He’s a master with a can of spray paint, and his surfaces always seem carefully considered, even when working with garbage. This is the natural bias of Williams hand, which is deft even when removed from the process. In his recent work, Williams crumples up landscape posters and swimsuit models pin ups and coats the surfaces with paint. These pieces are defined both by his economic manipulation of paint and the photographic scraps Williams decides to leave untouched. Here and in earlier work, Williams mixes atmosphere, melodrama, and illustrative sci-fi balls of light to create a genuine sense of ephemeral power.